


A Midnight Sun is Rising

by thatsadearthlyscene



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Multi, Revolution
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-10
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2017-12-14 13:18:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/837313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsadearthlyscene/pseuds/thatsadearthlyscene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(formerly Illuminate the Night) The Society is a peaceful place, a beautiful place. Or so it would seem.<br/>The Society has secrets, terrible secrets. Under the surface, a rebellion is brewing. Led by an angel and a child of darkness, the Resistance will fight for a world where shadows aren't deadly and equality is more than just a childhood dream.<br/>Dystopian AU, Enjolras/Eponine</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Shadows

The Council has ruled for over a hundred years.

No one really remembers what it was like, Before. Just digital views of planes and bombs and fire, of screaming children and sidewalks soaked in blood. It is better now, The Council says. Peaceful now. But there are those who know better.

He is the son of a council member. He's suspected since he was seven what “better” meant. He’s seen images of mindless herds of workmen tramp into slaughterhouses, babies torn from weeping parents never to be seen again, toddlers gunned down in government facilities. Confidential images, of course, but his father’s study door was left open one night, and the truth has a tendency to be discovered. Such brutal truth, however, could never be allowed to dim the harsh brightness of Society.

But they trust him, the angel child. Gold hair and blue eyes like cold gems. He plays their game, says their vows, is the model of a perfect citizen. Yet beneath the unfeeling marble facade lies an impassioned fire that, once unleashed, will grow to consume all in his path. He is Gabriel Enjolras, and history will not swallow him so easily.

*************************************

She is the daughter of corrupt officers. Not that it is a rarity, but her parents are worst than most. They used to be criminals, but four years of the Academy of Reform and now they work for the state. It's a pitiful life and a lonely one, but she's grown used to it.

She knows the truth. Seen the carnage firsthand, seen the blood and tears and pain. Those years her parents were away she was stuck in the Home with the lost children of the city. She knows what horrors hide beneath their dark eyes and grimy skin. She was one of them once, and years in this sterile new life couldn't change that.

Beneath the lights and splendor of the city is the cold black heart of Society. She still traverses the alleys of the Underground in her dreams some nights, amid the steel and granite hallways not meant for civilian eyes. There are secrets down there, terrible, terrible secrets.

The clear silver waterways that thread through the Society like veins, bringing life to all its citizens, are corrupted. Every month gallons of drugs are mixed into the water, dissolving like a traceless poison. Sedatives, meant to keep the population placid, content, meant to keep the people obedient. She’s seen the “Distribution”. She’s seen the results of the experiments to explore the long-term effects of the drugs. The lab rats were bald, wrinkled, mouths crusted with sores, but still alive. Alive, if such a state when all individual spirit has long since fled, replaced by blind complacency, can be called as much. In her nightmares she sees her family take the place of the rats.

But they don’t notice her, the invisible girl. Brown wavy hair and eyes like glowing amber. She plays their game, says their vows, is an ordinary citizen. Yet beneath her mask of unfeeling obedience lies a bitter hate that, once summoned, will rip apart all in her path. She is Eponine Thenardier, and history will not swallow her so easily.


	2. The Birth of an Angel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The childhood of a revolutionary.

Enjolras first suspected the true nature of the Society at the age of seven, during a rare event in which a Council member's daughter was deemed undesirable. He watched from the window as she was dragged, kicking and screaming, away from indifferent parents. The officials were unnecessarily rough and tears tracked a shining path against skin turned ruddy by pain and terror. In the brief second before she was thrown into the black van, her eyes met his. Hazel darkened by the knowledge of her fate. Horror. Pain, unimaginable pain. And worst of all to witness, complete hopelessness. She reached a hand out to him, seeking, and he banged his own fist against the glass, calling, screaming, for the officials to stop, for mercy, for God’s sake, mercy. Enjolras’ mother rushed into the room and yanked him away from the window.

The girl was his age. So young and undeniably innocent. She was undesirable due to a genetic growth disorder. The drinking water tasted strange for days afterwards and the neighborhood was shrouded in a peculiar fog of confusion, but his mind stayed curiously clear. Amidst this clarity bitter resentment took root.

Three weeks later Enjolras was walking by his father's study when he realized the door was open. A thin sliver of cold electric light fell across his path from the opening, stopping him in his tracks. It was, perhaps, this light that forever sealed his fate. Bitter is the light that illuminates the ever dark shadows of mankind's own cruelty. Even bitterer so is the innocent young soul who witnesses this illumination.

The screen on his father’s wall was lit with the same unnatural light, a startling white background imposed with virtual images of grey files. Enjolras’ eyes scanned the labels, government standard black type grating against his vision, before coming to a rest on FAMILY PHOTOS. It was strange, he thought, that his father would want to keep such memories. A distant and brutal man, proud to a fault, he cared little for the family that shared his name. A second of hesitation and then Enjolras reached to touch the file, the warmth of his fingertips registering against the machine. Pixels rose up, twisting into obscure lines and points before aligning into a uniform PASSWORD? Here he paused, unsure, his hand hovering above the letters.

“It’s THIRDPANTHEONFALLING211096.” A steady voice answered from the back of the room. Enjolras whipped around, eyes searching the dark corners desperately. He was not a careless boy, and he had checked the study for occupants multiple times before entering. A figure stepped from the corner, wrapped in scarlet and infinitely familiar. “Trust me, Enjy.” His mother whispered. “Enter it in. THIRDPANTHEONFALLING211096.”

The look in her eyes was more than enough stimulus for him. Turning back to the shimmering screen, slightly trembling fingers tapped out the code. Once again the pixels separated, reformed, twisting in a bizarre dance lacking breath and grace. An image took shape, startling in its clarity. First were the images he had seen countless times, the images from Before, yet so very different. The bombs fell not from enemy planes, but from planes inscribed with the Society’s signature. Men and women covered in dirt and ashes, armed with whatever they could scrape up, fired back below. Beneath their feet graffiti words were emblazoned in red: FREEDOM and THIS IS OUR HOME and YOU CANNOT SILENCE OUR VOICES.

This was not a war against an enemy country as he had been taught. It was a revolution.

Enjolras turned to his mother, questions choking his throat, but she shook her head. “Watch.” Words took their place on the screen.

**On November 17, 2035, President Baker was installed as dictator during the crisis against the Axis Powers with the full support of Congress. The world was under enormous threat. What some may consider immoral acts were committed repeatedly by the government, acts justified by the end result, victory over the enemy.**

“Obviously it’s a bit biased.” His mother spoke. “They were always huge admirers of Machiavelli.” Pictures of torture, bloody and in brutal detail, flashed before them.

**While the crisis was resolved, Protests erupted across the country, fueled by released information of such acts, blown out of proportion by activists. The government took the necessary steps to maintain peace.**

More video, this time of citizens penetrated by bullets and beaten to the ground with police batons. Blood painted the scenes, flowing on streets, coursing from limp bodies, splattered against brick walls, staining the cities like rust.

**Ties with outside countries, all experiencing their own catastrophes as the world underwent legendary disasters, were officially cut. Private corporations, universities, public education, libraries, religious organizations, and hospitals were seized by the government for the good of the people.**

A snort from his mother.

**Revolution burned across the country. With concentrated measures-**

"Reports indicate these measures included the kidnapping, torturing, and brutal killings of revolutionary leaders, broadcast on live television to the populace. There were massacres almost everyday. So many died. So many..." Her voice bent under the weight of the words.

**-the treacherous flames of rebellion were extinguished after twelve long years. As a final protection of peace, chemicals similar to hallucinogens were infused into the water and air to change traumatic memories to a less painful knowledge of history. A war with an enemy country that had been resolved. This war, Councilmen, is the history we must tell our citizens in order to protect them. Knowledge of the truth, of such violence, could only lead to more violence. This is how the Society was created. The goal of the Society is to bring peace and happiness to her citizens. We cannot allow any obstacles to keep us from our goal.**

It wasn’t over yet. Dates flashed by, dates not so long gone, each belonging to a picture like some perverted scrapbook.

1/27/2147, two years ago. Babies in tiny body bags. A caption read “Four hundred eliminated on this date with estimated potential IQs over 120”.

3/17/2147, one thousand children below the age of ten with genetic disorders. Eliminated.

4/5/2147, two hundred toddlers with physical defects. Eliminated.

The list went on and on, each number blurring together in his mind until nothing remained but dark figures and the blank, lifeless eyes of the innocents.

“You had to know, Enjy. I’m sorry, but you had to know. In time I will explain, but your dad will be home soon. You must go.” She escorted him back to his room, the door to the study closing with a soft click, though he thought surely the departure of all he had once known should sound louder. More like a thunder clap. Or perhaps a gunshot. Even so, he fell into bed silent.

Numbers, he realized. That’s what we are. Numbers, to be added and subtracted at will.

****************************************************  
His mother died one month later. An official cause was never found. The Society turned her death into a sacrifice, a sacrifice for its continuation, its “peace”, a sacrifice for that which she hated beyond words. Her casket was covered in a scarlet shroud. In his mind it echoed the rivers of blood she had shown him weeks before. A reminder of why he had to fight, why he couldn't let what she had given him go. When the moon rose that night, he sobbed, breathless, enraged sobs, cries of anger and anguish melding into one.

It was the last time he cried for a very long time.

Enjolras’ father buried all compassion with her death, and if Enjolras was marble his father was black granite. Even so his son burned with righteous fire, and a week after his mother’s passing he found a letter in her script stuck beneath his childhood train set. It was written in a code she had taught him as a game when he was young. He understood now it had never been a game.

My Child,

This is the truth of my life, because you deserve the truth, and because it is all I can offer you now.

I was born in the slums. My family was poor, and it was a horrible existence to say the very least. I did things you could never imagine just to survive. Remember the plight of those below you, Enjy. Your father never looks down upon the misery of the people, but you are different.

When I was thirteen, the Resistance found me. They are a secret group fighting for freedom and equality. In other words, revolution. I was accepted into their ranks within the year. By the time I was seventeen, I was a respected member. My mission was to infiltrate the Council through exploiting my relationship with a Council member. Your father, honey. But I never meant for it to turn out the way it did, never meant to have you...  
But no matter. After you were born, I had no choice but to marry your father. It was not so bad. I had you and that was enough. All these years I have continued to report back to the Resistance.

On the 24th I was found out. They will kill me and they will manipulate my death. Do not believe whatever they tell you. It is all lies, lies they will use to groom you into one of them. You cannot let that happen. Play their games, say their vows, do whatever you need to to stay unnoticed, but do not become one of them.

Listed below are contacts, members of the Resistance you can trust. I hate doing this, hate putting you into danger, but it has to be done. You have to continue my fight. Fight for me, for yourself, for the people. I love you, Enjy. I'm so, so sorry you were born into this twisted world.

I love you for always and ever. Love, your mother.

And so an angel of the revolution was born.


	3. The Darkness Births a Child

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The childhood of a forgotten child.

Eponine’s parents left her when she was eleven. It was a simple con gone wrong, a slipped hand and off-target fingers, and then it was all over. She was the watch-dog and managed to slip into the shadows before police arrived to cart-off the group. Born into the filth of the alleys, running into the night came secondhand to her. The streets were filled with the quiet murmurings of the damned, and for a second, if only a second, beneath the yellow pool of light cast by a street lamp Eponine could believe she was free. She wandered the night away, a wayward phantom, shoving off drunken specimens of the underworld and drifting between light and dark. Always a lone traveler, leaving no trace, her long-buried hopes and dreams tied into a neat little package tucked behind her heart. But she had to go home at some point for her siblings, and when she did the next morning they were waiting.

It was sunrise, the sort of sunrise only the underbelly of society could conjure up, with bloody wisps of cloud tainted by smoke rotting in the growing light. As soon as she walked in the door they were there, crowding the dirty little hovel with their crisp white uniforms. Gavroche and Azelma sat in the corner, faces blank and hands gripping beaten suitcases. “We are taking you to the Home for Displaced Children,” the officials told her. “You will be safe there. Pack your stuff.”

Eponine thought about running, about jumping out her bedroom window and taking flight, but her siblings weighed down her wings. She couldn’t leave them. Abandonment was her parents’ legacy.

For seven years she had stolen, conned, sold herself in the dank metal veins of a rusted and broken society. For seven years she had given everything, from her teeth to her dignity, just to survive. And so with a last glance at the hell-hole she refused to call home, Eponine left it all behind.

The Home was near the heart of the city, a building that looked as if it had risen from a Grimm fairytale. All iron and stone, towering gate and barred windows, a prison more than a refuge. Still she walked through the doors with her head high. She was Thenardier- Queen of the Underworld. The children recognized this and parted to make way. Gavroche and Azelma followed close behind, him an unflinching prince of runaways and her a slumped specter. The officials led them through the halls, electric light flickering against whitewashed walls, a kind of dark parade. From all sides children watched, from three to seventeen, grimy even beneath their government issued clothes. We are the lost, tired eyes seemed to call. We are the lost, the forgotten, the limp bodies slumped in an alleyway that no one cares about. The broken, the despairing, the old-from-birth, the dirt beneath the feet of Society. We are the lost.

I may be forgotten, Eponine thought, but I am not lost yet.

The dorms were on the third floor, classrooms on the second, dining and administration on the first. Guards were posted around the perimeter, guns too heavy for clever little fingers to snatch tucked in their belts. Rooms were sparse, bunk beds nailed to the walls with trunks shoved underneath and basins with murky water lining one wall. Privacy was a luxury not provided. Dignity had long since fled these children. The air was brutally cold.

Schedules were tight, breakfast then classes followed by lunch, chores, and more classes. Evenings held half an hour of free time. Eponine was quiet and obedient, doing as she was told. No more, no less. The children left her and her siblings alone. Three weeks proceeded in this way. However, no walls could block out the darkness the children themselves trailed in like mud tracked on shoes.

Gavroche had his food stolen by an older boy. A simple act, but an act with consequences nonetheless. As a child who fought everyday for sustenance not so long ago, Gavroche did not hesitate to challenge the thief. And so it was Eponine walked into the dorms one day to find her brother bloodied, bruised, hungry, and sentenced to severe punishment. To be fair, he had held his own against the older boy, but poverty is a jungle and one learns how to behave as a jaguar. Nails like claws and teeth like fangs. She gave him her dinner that evening.

The Home’s punishment consisted of four hours in a pitch black freezing closet. Gavroche endured it with silence, a sort of quiet rebellion. The children looked at him with respect after that.

One somber night Eponine slipped away. She found a passageway, what looked to be an old maintenance tunnel, in the basement of the Home. The air was metallic, dank, dirty light shining off metal walls. It led to a vast underground cavern, an obsidian black dome too smooth to be natural arching above her head. Every night for the next four weeks was spent exploring this place, the haven of government secrets and dark truths. This, dear reader, is how she learned what was previously told. The experiments gone wrong, the drugging of the people, all atrocities committed under the city itself with obscurity as a treacherous earthy veil.

At the end of four weeks she met Feuilly. It had been a long day, longer than normal, and every bone in her body ached. For the first time in a long time Eponine was thinking of what she had left behind, images of a rich boy hunched over a book in the library rising again to her mind. He had been handsome even as a child, sparkling green eyes and a permanent jovial grin. Her ten year old mind had immediately been attracted to him. It was little more than an acquaintance, polite words exchanged in the only public library of the Society as the worst of her life raged on outside the carved doors, but his kindness had awakened in her a longing for something more, someone more.

And so when Eponine entered the reading room to find a boy hunched over a thick green volume, she had nearly shrieked at the sudden vision, so similar to her most treasured memory. But this boy, while pleasing to look at and outwardly clever, was not her Marius. He looked up as she stared, green eyes smiling, and raised his eyebrows. “Feuilly.”

“I… what?” she asked, still lost in her dreams.

He grinned and stood, neatly tucking the book under his arm to offer his hand. “My name. It’s Feuilly.”

She took it with slight hesitation. “Eponine.”

Feuilly nodded amiably before settling back onto the rickety wooden chair, the best the Home could buy, curling up contently.

“What are you reading?”

He snorted. “The only legal history book around. It’s about the other nations, Before.”

Eponine stepped closer, natural curiosity overthrowing learned caution. “Where’d a boy like you learn to read books like that?” She smiled after a moment, seemingly realizing the roughness of the question.

Feuilly merely smiled in return. “I taught myself. Education is deliverance.”

She whistled, impressed. “I know a bit. How to read and write, I mean. Learned from my father.”

“I could help, if you’d like? I need someone to discuss this with anyway.”

And from that moment forward, Eponine had found a friend.

It would be a long four years before her parents came home from the Academy to claim them. They wore fake expressions of love, all melted sugar and sour sweetness, spewing velvety words of I missed you so as they hiked through the city to the brand new house given to brand new, reformed officials. White walls, white ceilings, white sheets, white lie, she thought. And what a lovely clean little lie it was. So she lived it.

In her dreams, she roamed the sooty city under moonlight turned to silvery ash. In her dreams, she left the lie behind. When her father hit her, when her mother screamed curses, when her siblings starved because of her parent’s greed and the walls couldn’t hold in the cries of pain and everything spun in dizzy white circles at night and blood stained the pretty walls and turned her thoughts vile, she dreamed.

And so a child of darkness was born.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was updated at midnight after a severe case of writer's block, so... sorry if it sucks? Otherwise, enjoy lovelies.


	4. Songs Sung in the Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First glances, and the beginnings of what might be destiny.

She first sees him on a winter day when she’s fifteen and he, seventeen.

The air is freezing cold, bitterly so, all the misery and the torment of poverty packed into one icy breath. Eponine’s parents may be officials, but the salary they get is spent on shitty alcohol and gambling, all but lost before it even reaches their ripped pockets. She’s roaming the streets in her old territory, familiar grime settling into the creases in her tanned skin in homecoming. She hums, satisfied in this new garment of dirt, tracing the buildings of stone with numb fingertips. Oh loneliness, she thinks, did you miss me?

It isn’t hard to spot him. Even dressed in what are probably his most worn clothes, he stands out like the sun in a gray sky. Shadows don’t dampen his golden curls. Eponine darts into an alley, leaning against the opening just behind him. She’s tired, she’s angry, she’s so damn cold, and this pretty boy doesn’t belong here, is an invader in her eyes with his stiff back and rich follies. Smirking, crouched just out of view, a weeping angel in the soot, she sings to him.

_Little rich boy, come and sit with me_

He glances up, brow furrowed.

_Out in the darkness and the cold of the street_

Blue eyes, more brilliant than ice, search for the source of the sound.

_Won’t you, won’t you, won’t you have a drink_  
 _Take a sip, it’s the bitter taste of poverty_  
 _Little bourgeois boy, never had to starve_  
 _Ain’t it nice, ain’t it sweet, to live out all your dreams_

He turns her way then, face pale and statuesque, lips parted as if to ask a question, and a bruise marring his cheek. She sees the indent, knows the pain, knows he’s been hit by someone with a ring. Breath caught in her throat, she turns and flees back into the gloom.

Eponine dreams of him that night, dreams of fire and blood and smoke and angels with scarlet wings.  
*****************************************************  
Enjolras is seventeen when his father ships him away.

It’s a winter day, a perfect setting for misery, air fogging the glass and seeping through the cracks of the window, chilling their hearts, before falling into the orange heat of the fire. He’s in the library, fingers curled around a book about the French Revolution. A rare find in a country where everything is censored for violence, but Councilmen get anything they want. It can’t be past ten in the morning, but the sunlight streams into the room with sharp clarity, gilding the gold curls of his that clearly came from his mother. Perhaps it’s this, this token of her, that strikes his father into anger.

“What are you reading?” the older man asks, voice devoid of emotion, walking in abruptly. He doesn’t wait for an answer. “That trash? Your mother’s junk, surely. Always had a horrible taste in books, among other things.”

“It is not trash, it is history. Believe it or not father, there is a large distinction. And her taste was different than yours, which does not make it horrible.” He doesn’t look up from the page, almost bored in countenance. “Quite the opposite in fact.”

His father leans closer, eyes narrowed behind slate gray lenses. “Watch your tongue boy.” The man, so rarely pushed into anger, is unusually irritable. “Just like her, spewing that crap, except you don’t know when to stop.”

“What crap?” Enjolras snaps back. “The truth? Because you seem quite fond of falsehoods, father.”

“What are you talking about?” Eyes flashing dangerously, hands fell on the chair arms on either side of his son, trapping him.

Crystalline blue eyes stare back defiantly, unsaid answers, unsaid questions, floating through the air between them. And then-

“Get out.” His father stands back up, turning his back on his own creation, his flesh and blood.

“You’re a coward.” Enjolras jumps out of the chair, book slipping to the ground. “Can’t stand to be around me, hmm? Is it because I look like her? Her, who you could have saved, but you didn’t because you’re a damn coward, always have been, always will be-”

For the first time in his life, Councilmen Enjolras raises his fist, his anger boiling over, anger and guilt because it’s true, he could have saved her, could have done many things, but that is the past and it’s too late. It’s too late, and the only thing he knows how to do is destroy. His ring, the family crest, leaves an indent upon his son’s cheek.

Those eyes, so similar to the pair that haunts his dreams, glare up at him.

“She was my mother.” The younger Enjolras’ voice is cracking, though whether through rage or grief or hate is unsure. “She was my mother, she was the only thing, the only one, that was ever here for me, and you let her slip away. You claimed to love her, but you didn’t even try. You know I’m right. You let her slip out of your fingers without a single glance.”

“You’ll go to your aunt’s house. You’ll go there and you’ll stay there, you’ll grow up and go to university in a year and become a Councilmember. You do what your family expects of you. Understand?”

His son never replies.

The next morning he leaves, fist clenched around a wrinkled piece of paper covered in spidery handwriting. As soon as the door closes behind him he pockets it, refusing to risk losing this last piece of his old life to the wind. Small but clear words read:

 _Trusted Members of the Resistance:_  
 _(Memorize this, then hide it somewhere safe. Burn it, perhaps. It must never be found.)_  
 _Angeline Combeferre, (your aunt, my sister)…_  
*****************************************************  
Enjolras roams the streets of the poor district that day, dressing in old clothes and ducking his fair head as the broken pavement grounds against his feet. For once he is content to watch and not speak, though surely it will not last long. He is conscious of the cold, of the slight pain in his cheek, but mainly he thinks of the future, pretty little dreams of red flags and bold black words like freedom. Words like liberty, like equality, like fraternity, which had so long escaped the government’s extensive vocabulary.

These are the thoughts that consume his mind when he hears the singing. It’s low and rough, a woman’s voice tainted with smoke and poverty- but no, perhaps tainted is not the right word, for it is this quality that lends to its beauty and immediately catches his attention. He catches a glimpse of her, dark hair and amber eyes assessing him as if he is a newfound trinket. And then, in a swirl of ragged cloth, she’s gone.

Enjolras dreams of her that night, dreams of fire and blood and smoke and a girl clothed in night that still manages to shine brighter than the stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I meant for this to be way longer, but then life happened and I'm so busy right now. However, I promise next chapter will be longer, and it will have all the Amis in it and stuff. On another note, concerning Enjolras and the hit from his father: I do not mean to lessen the tragic and horrific situation of Eponine's abuse. I just wanted to give them a little thing in common if that makes any sense? No offense is meant.


	5. There Will be a Downfall (Immunity is the Key)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Souls collide and revolution brews.

The next time they meet, two years have passed and it is again winter.

Eponine’s feet find the familiar cracks in the pavement, spiraling out like dark galaxies carved under a dusting of star-bright snow. There’s a stillness to the city this morning, a warning creeping in with the dawn. It could be pretty here, she thinks. But misery has a way of staining the stone, a barely visible fleeting darkness mixed with rust and tears. It’s here, even under a coating of fresh snow, a prickling in her fingers and toes.

She passes the hours wandering. Old habits stick- her parents with their grimy bottles and sharp words, her daydreams and aimless feet. The Council Hall bell rings out the cold hours, an electric melody that doesn't quite fit. It is almost 3 o’clock when she hears them.

Shouts. Shouts of indignation, screams of rage, furious words cutting through the air like razors. Unusual for this part of the city, not quite in the slums and not quite out. Curious, she slips closer, edging through the alleyways and onto a broad street. Figures are crowded at the end, faceless shapes silhouetted against the hazy sun. They stand on a makeshift platform of wooden crates, features obscured by painted masks and hoods. Eponine moves closer, slipping into the crowd that surrounds them.

Within a few seconds she knows what it is. Even having never seen one, the words flowing from them form a clear narrative. A protest. These men are staging a protest.

Idiots.

The people chant along, raised fists blurring into streaks of colors. More masked men race through them, handing out pamphlets. The crowd quiets for a moment and her attention is caught by the apparent leader, a man with a scarlet hoodie and golden mask that catches the sunlight. Bright words rip from his throat, born upwards by their glorious nature, words of freedom. They transfix her and suddenly the world is held trembling in a web of what could only be described as hope, spun by this speech and these weary people.

A web can be a delicate thing, and protests have a habit of attracting attention. Police are streaming through the street before she knows what’s happening and all is chaos and a white rage of sound. Eponine fights her way through, memories of pristine white uniforms flying behind her eyelids. The protesters jump down from the platform, desperately calling out slogans of equality, but the Officials are closing in and they aren't going to get out of this one and it’s a pity because for a moment she believed in what they were saying.

Perhaps this is why she chooses to help them.

Off of the street there is an alley, and off of this alley there is an escape. She grabs the nearest protester, screaming a despairing “Follow me.” and unceremoniously yanking him behind her. They run, and she can feel rather than see the others following, winding through the raised fists and furious people as white blurs in the corners of her vision. She falls only feet away from freedom and strong hands lift her up from behind, breath a harried gasp against her neck. Then they’re through, into the shadows, and Eponine’s heart is thudding and breath a forgotten impulse and why, she wonders, why did she do that? All these years spent in darkness, and at a mere hint of sunshine she’s turned.

“Thank you.” One of the protesters grunts, still panting. His hood has slipped and she catches a glimpse of reddish brown hair. This and the green eyes, the innate kindness, spark a memory. A name slips out of her lips, unbelieving. “Feuilly?”

Those eyes widen beneath the mask. “Eponine?” And then they’re hugging, laughing, arms wrapped so tightly around each other they can barely breathe. The revelry is short lived, as the boy with the gold mask- for now she realizes they are all just boys- steps back the way they came. “Where’s Marius?”

Feuilly pulls away, turning back in anxiety. All the boys follow, hands reaching for the street, still flooded with Officials and resisting citizens. She yanks the golden boy back, hissing into his ear. “Don’t, idiot. It isn't safe. We shouldn't even linger here. We should go, now. I’m sure your friend is fine.”

He yanks his mask off, running slim fingers through his blond curls in frustration, but she’s frozen in place. It’s him. The rich boy from two winters ago, the one who managed to look so lost and so sure of himself at the same time. He notices the change in her expression, and surprise seems to flit across his features. He remembers too.

All thoughts of recognition are interrupted as a bumbling masked protester stumbles into the alleyway.

How? Is all she can think. All these faces, all these memories, how?

Green eyes. Freckles. A laugh, thick lips pulled back in a grin. A boy that reigns over her dreams even now.

Eponine starts to say his name, smiling already, lips parted in expectation.

“I thought you guys went this way, but I got lost in the crowd.” Marius grins. “Who’s your friend?”

“Eponine.” Feuilly steps forward, hand clasping Marius on the shoulder. The younger man looks at her with vague puzzlement, brow furrowing. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

There is a lump in her throat. She isn't sure how it got there, but she doesn't like it. She swallows, pasting the smile back on, blinking rapidly behind the curtain of roughly cut bangs. “No.” she says, though she isn't quite sure why. “No, I don’t believe so.”

“Oh.” He nods. “Nice to meet you then.”

Eponine can’t manage a reply. Why would he remember her? They were young, and she was just some street girl. He was a Council member’s son. And for the hundredth time in her life, a dream floats away in ash, invisible particles dancing beneath the cursed sun, a mocking waltz of broken glass.

“We need to go.” She says again, tongue thick in her mouth, and pushes past the boys. The alley leads out into the ghetto, a crooked sketch of bare grey lines and misplaced strokes of black dirt. They follow without question. A presence forms at her elbow, and she glances back to find Golden Boy’s eyes boring a hole in her. Eponine glares back. He raises an eyebrow, clearly surprised, before speaking. “I did not mean to offend you in any way, mademoiselle.”

“You didn’t offend me.” A pause and then a cold, “Sir.”

He frowns, but there’s something in the lines of his mouth that betrays amusement. “I just wanted to thank you. For getting us out.” The boy swallows, and she sees there that he did not mean to put his friends in harm’s way, that he wishes he didn’t have to, but it must be done. He will fight, and he will bleed and he will die to pull apart this wretched place and replace it with a world where peace is carried within the hearts of the people, not Society syringes. She sees he knows. And those words come back to her, lofty words of liberty, and she wants once again to believe.

But she knows the price of believing.

They part near the nicer parts of the city. Eponine hugs Feuilly goodbye, and Golden Boy gives her a nod. That night her parents are too drunk to move, and she doesn't mind so much. No moving means no hitting. She wonders briefly why the drugs don’t work on them, but perhaps the alcohol has corroded their veins too much for that, or perhaps the rumors are true and some people really are immune. The night is spent in sleeplessness, kept captive by white walls long since turned dingy, and her fingers brush the paint in an attempt to shove the darkness away.

She knows the price of believing.

So why, then, can she not forgot that moment when all that filled her ears was right and good and so, so real, a dream startling in the beauty of possible reality?  
*************************************************************

Seeing her again brings back memories he’d buried long ago. Enjolras doesn’t sleep that night, his pen spilling cobalt ink over wrinkled pages, drawing out words and phrases and worlds very far away and yet living under his fingertips.  
*************************************************************

Eponine follows Feuilly to a meeting two weeks later.

She hadn't planned on it, not really. This sudden leap of faith has caught her off guard, and she’s hesitant to react on it. Even so, when she sees a familiar shape hurrying, head bowed, into an old café called the Musain, she darts in behind.

They are all gathered there in a back room- a bit of maneuvering around the manager, and she’s in. Golden Boy-who she learns later in the night is Enjolras- stands on the table and shouts a brief speech, hands outlining the familiar bright universes that his words fill. She loves it. She loves believing, if just for a split second. Marius is there too, but Eponine finds her eyes drawn more often to Enjolras, and her heart aches less in the presence of a cause.

She doesn't speak up until the third week. They’re outlining plans for a large scale protest in the center of the city, and every eye is trained intently on the maps. Combeferre is discussing the potential of discovery and punishment, of the large inventory of extremely advanced technology and weaponry they should expect the Society to possess, when she cuts in.

“You really don’t know much, do you?”

They all glance up, surprised.

“The Society doesn't have all that crap.” She continues, standing from her usual darkened corner. “They just want you to believe they do. The truth is, the Society’s going broke. Haven’t you noticed? Things are falling apart. They barely have enough resources to keep the city going, let alone track down some petty annoyances like you.”

Enjolras waves a hand for her to continue, face blank.

“The drugs they use to control us have been more and more diluted for years now. People are starting to become immune. Before long, they won’t hold any sway over us.”  
A childlike excitement flits over his face before burying itself beneath his eyes. “Immune.” He looks up at her, brows furrowed. “This could reduce the effectiveness of any chemical weapons. The Society has administered its own demise.”

The room is suddenly filled with voices raised in anticipation, a great tumultuous clamoring of hope. Enjolras meets her eyes across the room.

They share a smile, melding fire and shadows into silvery light, into bright futures and equality and people born without the confines of class, into a weapon that will sever the chains of humanity forever.

Into revolution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SO SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG. But yay, longest chapter so far. The next chapter will hopefully be up soon, but my schedule is super busy so I can't promise anything. Thanks for hanging in there with me. Right now I'm thinking there will be a total of seven chapters but that may change. Feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks, lovelies.


	6. The Fall Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fall begins in more ways than one.

It is a month and eight meetings later that they plan another protest.

Eponine has come to every meeting, often berating their ignorance but helpful nonetheless. With Feuilly’s help she has a map drawn up of the tunnels, government facilities squared off in red. Another girl, Musichetta, a plump red-haired waitress at the café, joins them, as well as Marius’s girlfriend Cosette (Eponine finds to her surprise that this girl strikes her with only a detached sense of loss, and despite her best efforts, she likes her very much). Every plan is outlined, local Officials noted, escape routes highlighted. It is the most important protest of their life, ten times bigger than the first and a test to see how much the Society will do to silence them. They are ready.

The night before the appointed date, Eponine can’t bring herself to come home. She stays out late at first, drinking and playing cards with the boys (she beats out the resident champion, Grantaire, but by that point in the game they are closer than family and he couldn’t have cared less). But eventually two o’clock rolls around, and all the boys proceed home slowly, and even Musichetta finishes her shift and politely asks Eponine to leave. She wanders outside, leaning against the cold bricks and casting her eyes to the sky. Everywhere she can see is dark, stars swallowed by the inevitable machine of human progress, pumping out the thick smog that curls through the horizon like a Van Gogh painting. She’d only seen one, a dusty copy in the back of the library, but the way the glowing of the stars had entwined with the night had fascinated her. A meeting of opposites. A melding into something bigger.

A form trudges out of the café, tiredness revealed in the lines of his shoulders now that everyone is gone. He glances up, seeing in the blackness a girl, and leans wearily against the wall next to her. They stand in silence for a few moments, each caught up in their own little corner of the universe. She finally speaks. “What made you do this?”

He doesn’t need clarification, just shifts in the growing chill. “My mother. She was a member of the Resistance. She died when I was young- killed by the Society when they discovered her identity. My father and I… we disagreed. I was sent to live with my aunt, Combeferre’s mother. She was Resistance too. She died a few years ago.”

“So they still exist? The Resistance, I mean.” She asks curiously.

“We haven’t heard from them in years. They went dark right before I was to be initiated.” He shrugs. “But I’d like to believe they still exist.”

She exhales, and her breath dissipates like mist under the dim streetlamps. “Maybe. They’re good at hiding, those people.”

“You’d fit right in.” He says it absentmindedly, but she’s come to realize nothing he says is without meaning.

“Because I can hide?”

“Because you can hide yourself among those with no fight left in them, and because you can just as easily shake the foundations of the world when it’s least expected.”

Eponine laughs, a husky sound deep in her throat. “You say it like you know me.”

He doesn’t even look at her. “Sometimes you don’t have to know people to know who they are.”

She turns to him, indignant. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

Enjolras shrugs. “Maybe. I’m tired.”

“Well, you don’t know me. You haven’t even tried to know me. You never will.”

“Do you have someplace to stay?”

“Why the hell does that matter?”

“Because we are both tired, and you seem rather opposed to leaving, and it would be best to get some sleep before the protest.”

“Are you proposing I come home with you?” Eponine stares at him under the darkness, profile as hard and unyielding as ever. “You are. You’re lonely. You don’t want to be alone tonight, not before the day when your dreams and your nightmares could rise to reality.”

“Does it matter?”

“Monsieur, reality is a nightmare. You just haven’t realized it yet.”

He sighs, his head falling back against the wall, eyelashes fluttering, somehow made young and ancient in the same moment.

“But it just so happens I don’t want to be quite alone either.”

They walk home in silence, his apartment filled with bittersweet warmth. It’s decidedly bare except for the worn and dog-eared books thrown everywhere, the only personal object a wrinkled photograph of a little boy and a smiling, gorgeous, shadowed women. His mother.

“Goodnight.” He murmurs, gesturing towards the bedroom. “You can sleep in there.”

“No.” She crosses her arms, raises her chin, dares him to defy her.

“I’m not letting you sleep on the fifty-year old couch while I sleep on the bed.”

“I guess neither of us will get any sleep then.”

“I suppose so.”

Eponine lays down on the couch, still glaring at him, pulling the neatly pressed blanket over her bony body. He settles down on the armchair, cutting off the lamp with a sigh. They lay there in the darkness, his steady breathing eventually lulling her to sleep.

Her dreams were never exactly pleasant, and tonight is no exception. She’s watching Azelma burn, screaming Eponine’s name as her skin chars and grows black, Eponine herself just feet away but paralyzed. Then Azelma collapses, transforms into her mother, screaming curses and coming at Eponine with hands wreathed in green flames. Eponine’s crying, trying to move but unable, limbs starting to burn, when the fire turns gold and melts down harmlessly.

“Eponine.” Enjolras shakes her awake, eyes bloodshot. “You were having a nightmare.”

“I know.” She snarls, jerking away.

His eyes widen a bit and she bites her tongue. “You haven’t slept.”

“And you haven’t slept well.” He counters.

Eponine rolls her eyes and shoves him away. “Go to bed, rich boy.”

He groans and returns to the armchair, watching her the whole time. They sit there in silence for a few minutes, each unable to fall asleep. And then Eponine does the closest thing she can do to giving up: she speaks. She speaks, and because it is late and she is so very tired and the dream has stirred up memories and hell, she doesn’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow but she knows everything is about to change, she tells her story.

There is a gift and a curse to a story belonging to a life, a story devoid of purpose or happy endings, and this gift and curse are one. It is empathy. It is a strange, broken kind of sharing, of understanding, of love. It is the winter without the spring, stained with memories of warmth lost.

He listens, and when she is finished he tells her his, the moonlight shrouding them in years. It is silent after, worlds bleeding through the emptiness as night meets day. Eponine sings the song of many years ago, the song of a clear day and blue eyes. It is in this way that they finally succumb to sleep.

I do not know, Enjolras thinks, eyelids shutting, I do not know what is to come. What a strange thing, to hold the past in your heart and the present in your eyes and not know what the next second will bring. If you will remember all this hours from now, if you will even be breathing.

When they wake in the morning, a pitiful breakfast is scraped together and consumed in comfortable silence. And then they are off, into the chilled morning, into the dawn of the old and the new and the not yet known.  
___________________________________________________________________________________  
Feuilly paints her a mask for the protest. It’s black with tinges of dark violet and navy around the eyes, silver outlining her features. She can’t quite fathom her emotions, elation and anxiety and gratitude and anger at herself, the boys, and the government. They are about to bring down hell upon themselves.

There in the café they slip on the masks and hoodies, falling into the delicate security of obscurity. There they bid the weathered walls goodbye, exiting with trembling hearts, some shaking from excitement, some from fear.

Bahorel, a huge man with scarlet briars for a beard, howls as they prepare to turn onto the main road, “Let’s kick some ass!”

And so it begins.

They stream into the street, running, screaming, holding up signs painted with the bold letters of rebellion. People draw back, surprised. Eponine yells at the top of her lungs, falling in step behind Enjolras. They’ve planned everything out and chairs and couches are yanked from side alleys, forming a makeshift stand. Some citizens follow behind them, enthralled with the possibility of violence. Enjolras climbs atop their makeshift stage, arms raised in a call for silence.

“Citizens!” He calls. He spares a glance to Combeferre, mouth tilting upwards in a soft smile. “Brothers, sisters, siblings. We stand here today with you, together. We stand here today to defy the dark. We stand here today to welcome the coming light. We stand here today to burn the Society and build the institution of the just, of the equal, of the free.”

The people roar, and the sun reflects off the worn buildings, gleaming, turning the world into a blur of pure white. Hands are thrust into the air, grasping, forming fists, bleeding into one tumult of humanity. Eponine sees the future. She sees hope. And she raises her own fist to the sky.

They have five minutes of victory before the Officials pour in. There are helicopters, guns, flames. The group leaps from the platform and falls into order, feet following the planned routes of evacuation. Enjolras, Eponine, Marius, Cosette, and Feuilly are all in one unit. The crowd pushes and pulls them, a faceless mass, and Enjolras is separated from the rest.

She screams his name, turning, shoving aside all in her path. There are white uniforms ahead and her heart threatens to stop. They’ve started to shoot into the crowd, and she doubts they really care who they hit. It takes another breathless moment for her to spot him. Eponine grabs his hand and runs.

They make it to a relatively empty street a few minutes later, having taken shortcuts through shops and courtyards and alleys. It’s only then that she realizes he’s bleeding. He stumbles, coming to rest against the wall, ripping off his mask and smearing the scarlet on the side of his forehead.

“Enjolras.” She yanks him roughly to the ground. “What the fuck.”

“It’s fine.” He shakes his head, a strange half-smile forming. “A bullet scratched me. It didn’t hit anyone, just a building. They’re horrible shots. If we come out of this with few casualties, I think it’ll be fairly safe to label today as a success-”

“Fuck you!” She screams, unable to contain herself any longer. “You almost got fucking shot! You fucking idiot! Fuck you. Fuck you and fuck your stupid ass and fuck-”

“Eponine.” He stops her, laying his hands on her shoulders. “It’s alright.”

She punches him on the arm. And then she kisses him.

Their lips clash, desperate, wild. Eponine falls into him, too tired to resist the temptation. His passion surprises her, a perfect storm of want and anger and something bordering on affection. They meld, tasting of salt and coffee and metal.

She finally pulls away when he nearly falls to the pavement, inspecting his head with obvious disapproval. “Get up. I’m taking you to Combeferre and Joly.”

Eponine mutters a final “fucking idiot” as they slip into a side street, and he laughs.  
_________________________________________________________________________________

“No chemical weapons were used during the riot. The anger of the people clearly shows that the drugs the Society is pumping into our water are no longer effective. The reaction of the Society was weak. The Society is crumbling, and there is nothing to stop us. My friends, we are going to win this.”

The Amis clap exuberantly as Enjolras steps off the café table, faces flushed with excitement and a shitload of alcohol. Bahorel and Jehan are dancing some sort of jig, Jehan reciting poetry about Bahorel’s underpants as they go. Grantaire joins in occasionally, whenever a rhyme is needed, and even Enjolras can’t help but laugh. Eponine plops down on his lap as more Amis rise to partake in the festivities, Courfeyrac throwing herself on top of Combeferre’s shoulders and singing jauntily. At the sight of Eponine perched on Enjolras’s lap, they all cheer and whistle.

“Having fun, pretty boy?” Eponine whispers into his ear.

“Believe it or not, I do have a slight grasp of the concept.” He grins, eyes turning to his friends. “Yes, Eponine. I am having fun.”

“Raise a glass!” She screams to the group. “Golden boy is having fun for the first time in his entire life!”

“To our great Apollo!” Grantaire proposes.

“To us! To the world!” Feuilly echoes.

“To liberty, equality, and fraternity!” Courfeyrac screeches, and they lift their drinks as one to that. 

Cosette bursts in to the room at that moment, leather jacket hanging tightly to her full frame. “I have news.” She gasps, eyes searching the room as the Amis fall silent. 

“What’s going on? Cosette?” Enjolras stands so quickly that Eponine almost slides off his lap. She rights herself and helps Cosette onto the nearest table to be heard.

“The Resistance is requesting to join you in your endeavors.” Cosette proclaims, voice still breathless but filled with the joy of the news it carries.

“The Resistance?” Combeferre repeats. “But I thought- after my mother’s death, we thought they had been wiped off the grid-“

“My father is kind of the leader.” Cosette shrugs. “It’s still very much a thing. We’ve been waiting, hiding underground until the circumstances allowed our return. We’re here. We want to help.” She smirks as she finishes. “And we have a hell of a lot of firepower.”

“Just what we wanted to hear.” Courfeyrac jumps up and kisses Cosette, smacking her lips into Marius’s when he tries to protest, and the room is once again filled with revelry.

“We’ll work out the details tomorrow.” Enjolras promises Cosette with a small smile. She nods and returns to her Marius. 

“Well?” Eponine asks, lips curling up at the childlike wonder in his eyes. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know.” He whispers. “Everything my mother told me- everything Combeferre’s mother taught us- it’s all true.” Enjolras laughs then, kissing her softly. “They’re real. It’s all true.”  
_____________________________________________________________________________________

They stumble home that night, crossing through the streets still stinking of gunpowder and sweat from the riots earlier. There were no casualties, a fact they have declared is a miracle, and everyone is high off of the victory. Eponine and Enjolras break from the group as they near the apartment, fingers entwined in the darkness. That night, they don’t even glance at the couch, both heading for the bedroom.

Enjolras spins her around as they enter, grinning like a fool as she giggles against his chest. “Eponine,” he whispers, and he recites it like a prayer. “Eponine, Eponine. Eponine.”

“Yes?”

He stares at her as the night swirls around them, and she’s starting to feel like the ground might never be still again. Everything is moving, so quickly that it’s hard to catch her breath, and she can’t help but feel like it’s a good thing. She’s tired of being stationary, of sitting in the same old apartment listening to the same old arguments raging between the same drunken parents, watching her siblings fall into the same pattern of hiding and thieving and lying. Gavroche has been coming to the meetings lately, as enamored with the Amis as Eponine is, and she knows that it’s time. It is time for them all to live. It is time for them all to fight. It is time for them all to burn. 

Enjolras breaks her out of her thoughts with a quiet confession. “I think I love you.”

“You think?” She shoves him onto the bed, trapping his lips with her own as the moonlight turns to fire on their skin. As they break for air, she mumbles against his neck, “I always knew you were a fucking idiot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Hi.  
> It's been... an incredibly long time. I am sincerely sorry for that, but school averaged at about five hours of homework a night, and then family crap happened and my mother fell and crushed the bones in her wrist really badly and had to have surgery and literally two days later my grandfather died. And then exams came. It still doesn't make up for all the months it's been since I last updated, but I am very sorry and thank you very much to everyone who has stuck with it. Feedback is greatly appreciated. There will be one chapter left after this, which will be the revolution, and then it's done. Thank you again, really.  
> (and yes, the romance progresses rather quickly. very sorry about that. it was supposed to be dragged out more, but... shit happens. sorry.)


End file.
